This invention relates generally to networks, and more specifically to apparatus and methods for modeling, managing, analyzing and determining root cause errors in surveillance networks.
Video monitor surveillance systems are well-known in the art and their presence has continued to increase to afford security. For example, video monitor systems have been used in gambling casinos, in banks, at ATM machines, and other such facilities. Video monitoring systems have even been expanded to the home environment to monitor activities while the home owner is away.
Current state of the art of video monitoring is limited the systems are typically point-to-point networks. With the advent of internet (IP) technologies, surveillance systems have begun using the internet to provide greater access to the monitored information. For example, computer based digital cameras enable a home-owner to monitor from a remote location activities occurring in the home via an internet connection.
However, while the use of internet (IP) based surveillance networks is advantageous in providing greater flexibility and diversity in the presentation of the collected information, the number of components not associate a surveillance system increases and failures in one or more of the system components may have significant impact on the surveillance system performance. The use of IP based surveillance also increases the opportunity to integrate the function of video monitoring with other related surveillance functions such as RFID monitoring. For example, integrating these two domains enables the video data and scanned RFID tagged data to be tightly bound and hence provide the observer with more accurate and timely visual identification. This however increases the complexity of managing the surveillance process and underlying infrastructure.
Hence, there is a need in the industry for a method and system for representing, analyzing and determining root cause errors and the impact of such errors in surveillance networks.